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The ability of the Republicans to design Congressional districts to benefit its candidates certainly helped them here and elsewhere to retain control of the U. S. Congress.

However, those Congressional districts do not apply to offices of the State of Ohio. You have to run statewide, not in a district conveniently created for you. A bit harder for statewide candidates. It demands candidates that identify with more than true believers.

And I believe this 2012 election in Ohio did great injury to Republican state office holders.

Ohio Republicans are damaged goods.

They did it to themselves. It's always bad when you think you're better than you are.

Treasurer Josh Mandel -- despite all the money thrown against Sen. Sherrod Brown -- went down in flames. Outside corporate sources spent $31 million added to Mandel's $12.6 million, say reports. More than $43 million. To do what? To lose.

Mandel didn't seem to serve but a short time as Ohio Treasurer before wanting another job. Greed is not becoming. Voters remember.

Mandel's brashness -- a quality of these brassy Republicans -- made one want to slap him soundly. A wise ass without the standing to justify such behavior.

Secretary of State Jon Husted -- despite court rulings telling him to back off -- continued to try to deny Ohio voters access to the voting booth. Voter suppression became a futile attempt by Republicans in many states to block those they considered Democratic voters. Voter suppression backfired on Republicans. It has a lasting odor I'm betting.

Do you think voters won't remember? Do you think there won't be forces to remind voters of Husted's behavior? He was doing the opposite of what his state job suggests he do? Husted's duplicity won't be forgotten.

Gov. John Kasich -- despite hiding in the tall grass of late -- set himself up for opposition by his brash beginning. He's has backed away some but his record as a union-buster now indelibly marks his tenure. Voters will be reminded again and again come 2014 when he must run for re-election.

Kasich's push of Sen. Bill 5 blew up in his face. He seemed to think that his 2010 election gave him the mandate to do as he pleased. His push to break collective bargaining rights "awakened a giant," one labor leader told the Huffington Post. Another said a poll suggested 70 percent of AFL-CIO workers would vote for Obama. That's payback.

It's like poking a hornet's nest. You must expect blowback.

Kasich epitomizes that wise guy quality of today's Ohio Republicans. He may have thereby encouraged Mandel and Husted. It becomes infectious.

It gave Kasich free rein to be a smart ass. As when he called a policeman who gave him a ticket "an idiot." This brashness reveals much of someone's personality. Better to hide it.

Kasich's attack on public workers awakened a rather languid and beaten labor movement here. Labor lashed back by putting Kasich's move against public workers on the ballot. Let the voters decide. They soundly defeated Sen. Bill 5. (Interesting that President Obama took both Ohio and Wisconsin where its governor acts similarly toward workers.)

Kasich has been damaged goods since.

Kasich has made a practice of stealing revenue from every city and town -- not to mention school systems. This makes for an issue that should come back to haunt him. Do as you please governing.

It's a very good campaign slam on Kasich that while he builds a huge reservoir of money at the state level (for a tax cut for the rich?) he forces local communities to put new taxes on residents -- regressive taxes on ordinary earners. I can't see that not being an issue in 2014 when he has to run again. That's a very close time as political campaigns go these days.

These brash young men of the Ohio Republican Party overstepped what they considered their mandate. And the voters have slapped them down.

But they keep doing it.

The voter suppression of Husted puts him on very weak ground.

Despite all his efforts to limit votes for President Barack Obama, he and the Republicans lost that one, too.

Kasich now better watch himself on the give-away of the turnpike. That may be the decision that turns off lots more voters. Again, time is running out for him with the 2014 election so close.

Ohio Republicans should examine how they are playing the political game. They seem to think they're invulnerable. We all know what happens when that disease sets in.

Roldo Bartimole has been reporting since 1959. He came to Cleveland in 1965 to report for the Plain Dealer where he worked twice in the 1960s, left for the Wall Street Journal in 1967. He started publishing his newsletter Point of View in 1968 and ended it in 2000. In 1991 he was awarded the Second Annual Joe Callaway Award for Civic Courage in Washington, D.C. He received the Distinguished Service Award of the Society of Professional Journalists, Cleveland chapter, in 2002, and was named to the Cleveland Journalism Hall of Fame, 2004.

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By Wendell Berry

Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front

Love the quick profit, the annual raise,
vacation with pay. Want more
of everything ready made. Be afraid
to know your neighbors and to die.
And you will have a window in your head.
Not even your future will be a mystery
any more. Your mind will be punched in a card
and shut away in a little drawer.
When they want you to buy something
they will call you. When they want you
to die for profit they will let you know.
So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world. Work for nothing.
Take all that you have and be poor.
Love someone who does not deserve it.
Denounce the government and embrace
the flag. Hope to live in that free
republic for which it stands.
Give your approval to all you cannot
understand. Praise ignorance, for what man
has not encountered he has not destroyed.
Ask the questions that have no answers.
Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias.
Say that your main crop is the forest
that you did not plant,
that you will not live to harvest.
Say that the leaves are harvested
when they have rotted into the mold.
Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.
Put your faith in the two inches of humus
that will build under the trees
every thousand years.
Listen to carrion—put your ear
close, and hear the faint chattering
of the songs that are to come.
Expect the end of the world. Laugh.
Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful
though you have considered all the facts.
So long as women do not go cheap
for power, please women more than men.
Ask yourself: Will this satisfy
a woman satisfied to bear a child?
Will this disturb the sleep
of a woman near to giving birth?
Go with your love to the fields.
Lie easy in the shade. Rest your head
in her lap. Swear allegiance
to what is nighest your thoughts.
As soon as the generals and the politicos
can predict the motions of your mind,
lose it. Leave it as a sign
to mark the false trail, the way
you didn’t go. Be like the fox
who makes more tracks than necessary,
some in the wrong direction.
Practice resurrection.

Wendell Berry is a poet, farmer, and environmentalist in Kentucky. This poem, first published in 1973, is reprinted by permission of the author and appears in his “New Collected Poems” (Counterpoint).